The Return
by J. Nelson
Summary: What happens after the end of Hyrule? This story tells that, and describes the fate of Zelda, Link, and Ganon.


Hello all! This is a short story I wrote for a contest between me and my sister. We each had to write a science fiction story, with a minimum of one alien, and the main character had to be from the Legend of Zelda. This was not an easy challenge but I really thought it was unique. Now the last Zelda game I played was A Link to the Past on the SNES so I haven't kept up with the story, but this doesn't really follow any canon; it's just a little fantasy that I thought was nice. Keep an open mind and enjoy! Any reviews are welcome so long as you're polite and I always love to hear your thoughts. I hope you find this a nice diversion from the norm. Oh and just to let you know, most of these characters are copyright by Nintendo and not me, and I'm only using them temporarily.

The Return. By Joseph Nelson.

Captain Buck Daniels of the space freighter Icarus lounged back in his chair and closed his one remaining eye. He was in the Delta-Beta-Cyon Quadrant now, and it was only sixty million light miles to his final destination, the moon of Phinus VI, where a geological and archaeological team awaited his return from the dead planet designated AZ-48.

"Buck," said a heavily accented voice from behind him. "What the skrak are you doing? This piece of junk can't fly itself; at least, not since you totaled the autopilot with your stunt on Cordous IX." Tatiana Kominishkov stalked up and booted the Captain's chair hard, almost knocking him over.

"Hey!" Buck said hotly, adjusting the side-visor over his blind left eye. "What's your problem? This old bird has never let us down yet!"

"Well I just want to get to Phinus VI in one piece and collect my payment—our payment," she corrected. "And I'm getting sick of staring at those frozen bodies back there!"

"Well let's stop shouting for a bit, okay?" Buck said, getting to his feet and heading for the drink replicator. "Like you said, the only other people here who could be listening are ice cubes." He pressed the button he had configured to pour out a Zarlien Froglopper and waited as the thick, syrup-like concoction dripped into a cup.

"I'll stop shouting once you start flying," Tatiana said hotly, standing off to one side and glaring at her copilot and sidekick. She had joined Daniels two years earlier, when he had been under attack by the Council of Faith for spying on one of their sacred meetings. She had helped him get off planet and he had given her a job as his copilot, a decision that had benefited both and made them best friends. Best friends who only agreed with each other on rare occasions.

"Okay, okay, sheesh, just let me get my drink." Buck grabbed his Zarlien Froglopper and went back to the pilot's seat, sipping the blue liquid and sighing in contentment. "Dang, this is good. I love assignments that don't involve us being shot at or almost eaten." He shuddered as he remembered one of their last jobs, for the Great Tabish of Rooklon II, and how it had nearly ended with both of them becoming lunch for a wild Hazlak.

"I suppose you're right..." Tatiana began. Suddenly the small craft shook and rolled under a barrage of phazor blasts. "Oh skrak..." Tatiana growled, hurrying over to the security console just behind the Captain's seat. "Two bogeys inbound from Z-range. Initial reports suggest...Reylon fighters, equipped with phazors and typod bombs. We're in trouble Buck," she looked up at the Captain's sweating face.

"Tell me something I don't know!" He snarled, fighting the controls and letting his drink fall to the floor. He stabbed a button and a screen overlapped the main viewing field, showing coordinates and a combat grid. "Now I'm beginning to wish I had bought those skyhawk missiles when I had a chance. Oh well, if we can outrun 'em and not get into a prolonged firefight we should be okay."

Frowning at her radar screen, Tatiana pressed a few buttons and flipped a switch. "Actually Buck, we aren't getting out that way; there are three more fighters coming in from A-range, and they're passing through the dark matter. Skrak, they have enough ships out there to duke it out with a carrier. I really hope you have another idea."

Buck strapped into his chair. "Yeah, I got a plan alright, but you're going to want to be nice and secure for this." Tatiana quickly sat and buckled herself in as well. "Let's see if I can't burn past them with my afterburners. It'll eat through our fuel in no time at all, but we should still have enough to make it to Phinus VI. Uh..." Buck glanced behind him and shrugged, "...but you might want to send out a distress call anyways, just in case."

"Great, just great." Tatiana turned the radio on and entered the frequency that was reserved for any military or law enforcement ships; she noticed the problem at once. "They're scrambling our radio mast!" She swore in several languages and tried another frequency. "Skrak it! We aren't getting anything out to anybody with these scumbags here!"

"Well then let's hope my idea works—" Buck cut off in a profanity as the ship shook again from more phazor blasts. "They just hit our engines! I'm losing power in all sectors related to them and to anything in the aft compartment!"

"Well I think we have more things to worry about than if those ice cubes melt!" Tatiana checked another screen next to hers. "No!" She howled. "One of the ships has just come up to us, I think they're going to try boarding!"

Buck unstrapped himself from his seat and got to his feet. "Then let's give them a little welcoming party, eh? If they wanted us dead, they would've slagged us with their bombs. I bet you anything they want what's in our hold." He opened one of the wall lockers and took out a rugged Syphon autorifle loaded with plasma cells; it wouldn't punch through the hull, but would liquidate anyone stupid enough to get in its way. Tatiana hurried over and got one for herself.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Buck muttered, taking cover behind a wide metal couch and aiming his rifle at the door to the airlock and the rear hold. It was cloaked in darkness, the power shut down due to the phazor shots that had scrambled the engines.

"Oh, you're just starting to have those feelings now?!" Tatiana said brusquely as she crouched behind a computer console.

"Well..." whatever else Buck had been going to say was cut off as the outer airlock door exploded with a deep whoosh sound. A few seconds later, after the auto-shields had sealed off the breach and the attackers had made it inside, the outer door was pressurized and slid open with a hiss.

Buck waited, sweat sliding down his spine, as silence reigned in the freighter. Then everything exploded into action at once, nearly overwhelming him. First, a small tube was rolled into the main cabin where the two occupants of the ship hid in wait. Both of them knew better than to look at it, and they ducked lower, covering their ears as it blew up with a thunderclap and a flash of immense proportions. After, as Buck's ears still rung from the blast, he glanced over the edge of the couch and saw several shadowy figures moving about in the hall to the hold; they were having trouble with the door apparently, and that gave him an opportunity to raise his rifle and fire off four or five shots at them.

The searing hot plasma ripped by the intruders, missing them by mere inches and impacting on the far wall in a brilliant display of color. Two of the shadows moved to the side of the open doorway, their own weapons firing silently into the main control room.

Whatever they were firing, it wasn't very powerful, as the thin slivers of gold and red just bounced off the metal of the couch and console. Still, Buck had no desire to get shot, so he kept his head down until their fire slackened off. Then he and Tatiana jumped to their feet and began shooting back.

The darkness lit up again, revealing that some of the intruders had broken into the back room and were searching it rapidly. One of the two at the door leaned out too early, eager to start firing again, and one of Buck's shots tore into his leg, shredding the flesh and dropping him to the floor with a scream of pain, his own rifle sliding away.

The other gunman knew better and pushed the barrel of his gun around the wall where he crouched. He pulled the trigger, holding it down and spraying a random blast at the two defenders. Buck dropped to the floor at once, several thin shots soaring over his head; Tatiana wasn't as lucky. Hearing her cry out in pain, Buck snapped his gaze over to her and saw her curled up on the floor, her gun thrown carelessly aside after one of the intruder's shots had hit her shoulder.

With a roar of rage, Buck rose to his feet and triggered off the rest of his plasma cell storage clip at the doorway. He missed, but the shooter quickly darted behind cover and that gave the Captain a chance to rush over to Tatiana and crouch beside her.

"Are you okay?" He asked, grabbing her nearly full rifle and tossing his empty one away.

"Yeah, yeah, just winged me," Tatiana's face was contorted in pain but Buck guessed she more angry than hurt.

"Well I'm going to do more than that to these—" Buck was interrupted by more firing. As the shots bounced off the console they hid behind, he readied his weapon to fire, but his attack plan was ruined when the intruders, at least the uninjured ones, headed back into the airlock chamber, dragging a chunk of ice with them.

"Skrak! They're going to cut through the shield and escape back to their ship!" Buck rolled to his feet, his rifle up and ready to do damage. "We have to stop them!" But it was too late; there was a minor explosion and a warning klaxon flared, a computerized voice calling out, "Warning, cannot seal airlock. Automatic blast shields critically damaged."

The airlock door slammed shut automatically, to preserve the rest of the ship's pressure, and then it was over. Buck ran to the security console behind the pilot's seat and watched as the little dots representing the mystery attackers sped off into the dark matter, vanishing as quickly as they had arrived.

In anger, Buck slammed his fist down onto the screen, nearly shattering it. That's when he turned and noticed the wounded invader had been left where he fell. Now however, he was trying to crawl across the floor to his gun.

"I don't think so," Buck snarled, walking over and grinding his heel into the man's hand. The spacesuit-clad humanoid let out a squeal and stopped moving. "That's better," Buck said, taking the gun and tossing it far out of the man's reach. He placed the barrel of his own rifle under the man's chin and tilted it up to face him. "Now you're going to tell me what I want to know, and fast! Beginning with who sent you and why they spared us. Talk!"

Tatiana was getting some bandages for her arm when the man opened his mouth to speak and Buck let his foot slide off the would-be thief's hand. Before he could utter more than one syllable, there was a sound from the rear hold and Buck's head snapped up. Someone was still there! Buck saw the outline of a man and stepped back, away from the wounded intruder on the floor. He raised his rifle and prepared to fire if this shadowy figure gave him any trouble.

"Who are you?" He demanded, finger tightening on the trigger. The figure stumbled out into the light.

"What in the universe...?" Tatiana whispered, dropping the first-aid kit and staring in shock. Buck was equally stunned, and the barrel of his weapon dipped low, aiming at nothing.

What they saw was impossible.

It was as dank a room you could find anywhere in the known galaxy. Filled with the stink of ages and the hot odor of sulfur and brimstone, it was a cavern from the depths of hell. Carved from the rock of the largest asteroid in the Delta-Beta-Cyon Quadrant, it was filled with a breathable atmosphere and living conditions suitable for any humanoid creature. And it was the base from which the long-dead sorcerer Ganon made his attacks on the universe.

He sat now, hunched over in his throne of bones, swathed in ratty robes and watching his men drag in the prize he had hunted down across several star systems. He was a gaunt, pale figure, with parched white skin stretched tight over sharp, hard bones. His lips were perpetually pulled back in a horrible sneer and he often moved bent over like an old man. And he was old indeed. Very nearly two-thousand-years old, kept alive by terribly dark magicks and a cold unwillingness to allow death to finally overtake him. He had outlived his home planet of Hyrule, and he had outlived his long-time nemesis Link. And now, finally, after all these years, he had the object he desired perhaps to a maniacal degree.

The Princess Zelda.

Zelda was encased in a large block of ice, frozen when a meteor had slammed into her planet, obliterating nearly everything and instantly freezing what survived. The Princess had been standing when it happened, apparently talking to someone, as she still stood in that position now, her beautiful features obscured through the frigid ice. She wore riding clothes and looked happy. That pleased Ganon even more. He would dislike his prize to look upset or even terrified; that would destroy the illusion he wanted.

It was a pity that Link had been frozen immediately as well. Giving the little man pain had been Ganon's only other obsession, and each time the simpleton had escaped certain death and ruined his plans. Well no longer. Now, Link was frozen forever, as was his beloved Zelda, and Ganon was alive. It was ironic, and made the wretched figure sitting on the grotesque throne laugh.

His bodyguards glanced over worriedly, but Ganon waved them off. "I'm fine," he rasped in a voice like the voice of death itself. "I am merely pleased with your success, Captain Gardner. Tell me, did you see _him_ there?"

The man Ganon spoke to, a tall human with a thick mustache, saluted sharply. "No sir," he said, still standing at attention. "But we didn't have much time to check. The two on the ship fought back extremely well. We lost Philon and had to leave him behind; it's a miracle we got out with our own lives."

Ganon nodded somberly. "I understand. I presume, of course, that you then destroyed the freighter and its occupants?" The man swallowed nervously.

"Uh, sir, that wasn't part of our orders, so I, uh..." Sweat rolled down his face.

"You didn't do it? You left them alive?" Ganon snarled angrily, climbing unsteadily to his feet. "Why must I put up with your incompetence?" Ganon smiled cruelly. "Oh wait, I don't have to." He raised his hands and, amid the desperate pleas of Captain Gardner, turned the human into nothing more than particles with a blast of magical lightning. He continued to fry the spot where Gardner stood until he had spent all of his frustration and anger, finally letting the lightning die down and plunging the cavern back into its former gloom.

"Let this be a lesson to you all," Ganon said, turning to the others standing in the throne room. "You must never allow anyone to survive after they have seen you. It is far too risky. That is how I have stayed hidden and alive all these years."

"Master Ganon!" Shouted a young security officer as he ran into the room from an adjoining corridor. "There's an intruder on our monitors!"

Ganon sighed. "Why am I not surprised? It must be that fool fortune hunter and his woman; they likely trailed the ion particles from your fleeing ships right back to this asteroid. Do you detect their vessel?"

"Yes sir, it's just beyond the central dust cloud by Asteroid 18. What do you want us to do?" The human glanced nervously at the pile of ashes that had once been Captain Gardner; it wasn't the first time the ancient sorcerer had killed an insubordinate like that, and each time it made the rest of them feel a little less safe. Ganon was on the edge of madness, possibly teetering over into full insanity at any moment.

"Where is he exactly?" Ganon asked thoughtfully.

"He came aboard via a garbage chute on the Z-range of the 'roid. He must have used a personal transport pack to fly to here from his ship. He's disabled two of the guards on Sector 9 and is in the air filtration chambers. I believe he should be in chamber B right now, sir."

Ganon smiled cruelly. "Give him to Raknor to play with for a while; save us the trouble of dispatching him."

"Yes sir, right away sir!" The human saluted and spun around, ready to complete his assigned task.

"Wait!" Ganon hissed sharply, slowly walking back to his throne. "Bring down the viewscreen so we can watch his demise from in here." Again, the young security officer nodded and hurried out.

"Now, gentlemen, please have someone clean up this mess." He waved at the scattered remains of Captain Gardner and turned to his throne. Suddenly, a loud gasp was heard, and then the distinct sound of a body hitting the cold floor. Muffled curses and fighting noises assailed Ganon from behind and the ragged sorcerer whipped around to discern the commotion.

"Impossible..." he gasped, his mouth falling open in shock. There, at the other side of the room, doing battle with his trained mercenaries, was Link, armed with a lance he had obviously grabbed from one of the downed guards. "How...?" The last two guards in the room rushed at the short man, one with his fire-saber raised high and the other with his rifle aimed and ready.

Almost too fast for words, Link grabbed the arm of the saber-wielding guard with one hand and threw his lance at the other. The thick metal pole crashed into the gunman's rifle just as it discharged a searing hot bolt of super-heated energy, making it explode in the man's hands and sending him flying to the floor, unconscious and badly burned. The other man was distracted for a moment by his partner's defeat, and that gave Link enough time to hammer a punch into his midsection and flip him over his back. The guard's saber flew in one direction and his body in another. The saber hit a nice patch of soft sandy dirt, the guard hit a big slab of rock. He was knocked out instantly.

"No!" Ganon howled, raising his hands and preparing to cast another devastating spell.

Link smiled. "I'm back, Ganon," he snarled, and ran across the room, snatching up the unconscious guard's fire-saber as he did so. "And this time I'm going to finish you off for good!"

Buck Daniels crawled along the narrow metal pipe that led from one air filtration chamber to another. He was sweating, angry, and a little confused. Who was this young man named Link? And more to the point, how could he have possibly survived being encased in ice for so long? The Captain of the Icarus had no idea how Link was unfrozen, nor did Link apparently; the young man's last memories were of speaking to the Princess Zelda and then waking up in the cargo hold of the Icarus. It was preposterous, impossible, and yet entirely true.

Buck's mission had been to recover some frozen specimens from a dead planet that no one remembered the real name for. He had collected some objects, some animals, some plants, and even a few people, and then he had been ordered to transport them to the research team so that they could be properly studied. Simple, easy, a quick payday. Pirates weren't supposed to attack, steal one of the icy bodies, and then somehow cause this strange warrior from a forgotten world to wake up; Buck assumed it must have been a bad case of Murphy's Law that put all these separate events together into one bizarre mishmash of indescribable proportions.

Either way, Buck wouldn't have let these pirate scum get away with their thievery; not after Tatiana got her shoulder blasted apart. A little payback was due, and following the ion trails was a snap. Then, with Tatiana left—somewhat angrily—back at the ship, Buck had taken a jetpack out and used himself as a distraction as he moved into the asteroid downrange of their radar dish. A distraction so that Link, whoever he was, could glide right into their docking bay in one of the Icarus's emergency shuttles. Link hadn't known how to operate the shuttle craft, but it had been easy to do from remote and gave Tatiana something to do other than fume about being wounded and left behind.

_Whoever the kid is_, Buck thought to himself as he crawled forward, his rifle held out in front of him, _he has it in his head to play hero and rescue the girl that these pirates captured. Suits me just fine; he can keep some of 'em occupied and I can keep some of 'em occupied. Maybe we'll even make it out of here alive and in one piece_. That sounded a little unbelievable to Buck.

Then, without any warning, the only sound in Buck's ears was a deep rumbling as the pipe split right before his very eyes, both halves tipping downwards to expel any unwanted garbage—and that included Buck! With a wild curse, the human Captain was thrown forward, his rifle flying ahead of him into the black void. He bumped off the smooth, slime-coated walls of another pipe, this one leading straight down and then curving softly upwards to break his fall.

"Skrak!" Buck growled searching in the dark for his rifle. "I guess they know I'm coming. Oh well," he found the gun and turned on the light attached below the barrel, "I don't really need the element of surprise anyway."

He looked around the dripping pipe and shrugged. There was only one way to go: straight ahead. He certainly couldn't climb back out the way he'd came. Holding his rifle in both hands, Buck started forward, ready for anything.

Well, _almost_ anything.

The pipe was short and led to a wide room deep inside the asteroid. The room was square and lit with large torches set into holders on the wall at five-foot intervals. Trash littered the floor and Buck uneasily noticed that among the debris were some bones. Humanoid bones, stripped clean of any flesh. He knew from experience that this was never a good sign.

With a terrible roar, something huge charged blindly out of one of the wide holes in the wall of the cavern. Buck stared in shock, his rifle dangling from stunned fingers. He had no idea what it was, but it was four times his size and covered in a coat of thick brown fur. He had once seen a Thralien bear in captivity and this had the same shape as it, meaning two arms and two legs, but it also looked a lot more vicious.

Snapping out of his stupor, Buck raised his rifle and fired, sending two shots into the beast's hide. He might as well have tossed a rock at it for all the damage it did. But now the monster was much more angry, and it decided to focus that anger on Buck, charging him and hitting him with a massive swipe from one of his gigantic paws.

The creature's claws were razor-sharp and tore through Buck's spacesuit easily, making a crosshatch pattern on his chest. With a grunt, Buck sailed through the air, somehow managing to retain his grip on his gun, and landed in a pile of garbage, a sharp piece of metal jabbing through his side.

Shoving aside junk and old space debris, Buck unsteadily got to his feet. His vision was blurry and colored spots danced before his eyes. Still, he was functioning well enough to see the beast turn to face him and begin walking closer. It bared its teeth; they were like blades from a Tuvalk knife only stained a rusty brown from the countless bloody meals the thing must have enjoyed.

Realizing his rifle would do nothing against the fiend, Buck quickly glanced around for an alternate weapon and found a full barrel of used propellant. Apparently this asteroid reused as much of the stuff as possible and they just tossed it away when it became too unstable. An unstable explosive was just what Buck had in mind right about now, and he lunged for the barrel, throwing his gun ahead of him.

The monstrous thing was almost upon him, roaring loudly and opening its mouth to savor its newest meal. Instead of getting a mouthful of Buck though, the beast found itself chewing on the cannister of propellant after Buck had used most of his remaining strength to throw it into the creature's mouth. Confused, the giant beast tried to bite through the metal barrel, and only succeeded in splashing itself with more propellant.

Buck grinned and scooped up his gun. "Get a load of this, you ugly freak!" He raised it and fired directly at the leaking cannister of fuel in the alien monster's mouth.

The explosion was large, loud, and messy. The beast's head blew up along with the propellant, spraying everything with gore. Buck covered his head and rolled out of the way of the rain of flaming fuel and charred monster.

After his ears stopped ringing, Buck got shakily up and checked the ammo readout on the side of his rifle; it was half empty already. Cursing softly, the human reached into a pocket and removed a roll of bandages. He carefully tapped up his chest and made sure the bleeding stopped and then turned to the rest of the cavern.

It was empty, except for the corpse of the strange alien and piles of trash. Buck saw three different holes in the wall, each leading to its own tunnel and going deeper into the asteroid. The monster had come out of one of those holes and they appeared to be the only exit options left for Buck; he couldn't go back through the pipe. So, remembering which tunnel the monster came from and avoiding it just in case there were more of them, Buck took the far left tunnel, his gun ready to fire.

He only hoped that whatever he ran into would be dissuaded by a few shots of burning plasma, 'cause right now he was fresh out of explosives.

Link dodged behind a crumbling stone pillar as Ganon sent another blast of lightning at him. Fortunately, this pillar held up to the devastating assault better than the last one had and that gave Link some breathing room as he desperately tried to think of what he could do next. There was no way he could get close enough to Ganon to properly attack him, not with the strange saber he had picked up. Though the weapon glowed fiercely and looked capable of doing serious harm, it was too limited in reach when compared with Ganon's magicks. No bow meant he couldn't attack from a distance, like Ganon was doing now and he would have needed a magic shield to get any closer to the vile sorcerer. What could he do?

Link felt confused, sluggish, not up to his usual standards. He had been frozen for how many years? He didn't know, and wouldn't have believed it if he had. All of Hyrule gone? Bizarre flying ships that moved in a dark sea beyond the farthest sky? It all sounded too fantastical, but he was here, and here certainly wasn't home.

_But_, he thought wryly, _it's _almost_ like home. Ganon has kidnapped Zelda and is trying to kill me in a dank cave and I'm hopelessly outnumbered. Actually, it's a _lot_ like home_.

"This time, you stupid whelp, you'll die for good!" Ganon screeched, sending another blast of lightning at the pillar, destroying it in a cloud of dust and sending Link flying forward, scrambling on all fours to get behind another pillar.

This pillar too came under assault from Ganon, and Link wiped sweat from his brow, wondering how much longer it would continue. Ganon was ancient; surely his magicks would have faded with time, right? No, apparently not.

"You think so?" Link shouted out, hoping to distract the fiend and keep him from destroying his cover, if only for a short while. "Maybe we both have it wrong, Ganon—maybe we're supposed to keep fighting like this for all eternity. How does that sound?"

"Very tiresome," Ganon snarled, blasting the rock with lightning once more. It held, but barely.

"Then explain to me why we, out of all our people, out of every person on Hyrule, have survived this long. You should have dead ages ago, yet your magic keeps you alive. Me? I don't even know how I survived. Everything points to me being dead, frozen for all time in a block of ice. But somehow I've been revived. Maybe it does mean something. Maybe a higher power doesn't want us to die."

"Hah!" Ganon laughed harshly. "That is the most foolish thing I have ever heard. You are only alive through dumb luck and strange chance. A situation I will soon rectify!" He raised his hands again, to attack the pillar Link was using as cover, but as he did so, Link burst from behind the stone, his sword held high.

"Then we shall see which one of us makes it out alive!" He yelled, rushing forward at the dais where Ganon's throne stood, and where the dark magician himself waited, arms raised to finish Link once and for all.

The lightning sped from Ganon's fingertips, coursing through the still air and slamming into Link's chest, searing through his clothes and burning him deeply. He screamed, his sword flying from his hands, jolted away by the electricity that infused him. He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the pain any longer. It had only been for a moment that the lightning caressed him, but had seemed like a decade. Finally, with a final cry of anguish, Link flew through the air and crashed limply against one of the last remaining pillars.

Ganon shrugged with an evil grin. "Little fool. I guess now we know the answer," he turned back to his throne and prepared to wait for his guards to arrive and dispose of the bodies. He heard a sound, however, and froze in his tracks. He turned slowly around, his hideous face contorted in disbelief. "No!" He bellowed shrilly. "How can this be?"

Link, scorched and blackened, climbed to his feet, using the pillar for support. He was breathing heavily and had blood running out of his nose, but otherwise he was still alive when he very obviously should have been dead. He grunted in pain and kept one hand clutched around his ribs.

"Is that all you've got?" He muttered with a shaky laugh.

"You impudent pest!" Ganon raised his hand yet again, sending more lightning into Link's already damaged body. It made the young hero stiffen in pain once again and stumble forward like a blind man, before sending him to his knees with another muffled cry of pain. This time however, Ganon did not stop his attack. He put every ounce of his remaining strength into his magicks, all to kill this man who should have been dead more than a hundred years ago. He used all of his will, all of his power, and tried to crush Link with it...and he failed.

Burnt and bloodied, Link crawled a few feet as the lightning died down completely. Ganon sagged against his throne in apparent defeat. "How...?" The aged sorcerer asked hoarsely. "It—it's not possible. You can't have...survived that."

"I did," Link whispered, pulling the saber back into his hand. He looked up and it was as though Death himself had taken mortal form. "And there's nothing you can do now to stop me." With that simple statement, Link rose, painfully, to his feet, the sword in his hand. He began walking towards Ganon.

"Oh really?" Ganon sneered, reaching behind his throne carefully, slowly, with his right hand. "I imagine cutting off your accursed head would still work!" Ganon howled like some monster from the depths of a nightmare and charged at Link, a huge sword brandished above his head. He had finally slipped over the fine line, had finally snapped that tenuous string that held him tight to reality; Ganon was utterly insane. And he only lived now to try and make Link nothing more than a bad memory.

Link watched the sorcerer charge him, he watched him raise the sword a little higher in preparation to strike, and he watched as he stepped aside and ran his own sword through the sorcerer's body. He felt strangely detached as Ganon slumped against the point of the saber, his mystical weapon falling from nerveless fingers. It was as though it was all happening in a slow dream.

"You...you aren't...this isn't...over..." Ganon hissed at Link through teeth clenched tight, and then he died without another sound.

Link pushed the sorcerer's body off his sword and let his ancient enemy fall to the ground one final time. He looked down at the sword in his hand and tossed it aside as well. Then, as guards rushed into the room, weapons raised, voices shouting commands, Link collapsed into a deep black well. He felt the ground beneath him and knew he had to get up, but it was so hard to think. So hard to act... And he suddenly felt very tired.

The air in the Icarus was cool. Recyclers pumped out the old stale air and used what was left over to keep the ship's atmosphere breathable. Every two years they would need to replace the 'cyclers of course, but they were cheap and it beat suffocating out in the dead of space. Right now, the space they occupied was approximately twenty thousand light miles A-Range of Ganon's asteroid.

Buck and Tatiana sat facing each other as he finished up his tale of what had happened inside the 'roid.

"So then I've just killed the ugly beast, right? I'm thinking that I might have a chance if they think I've been killed by that thing, so I crawl up a garbage chute to one of the upper levels. Lucky for me there was a guard whose uniform was just my size. I clubbed him and dragged him into a utility closet. That's when I went to look for Link here," he pointed at the unconscious young man who lay on the plain white table next to the large block of ice that was the Princess Zelda; he hadn't regained his senses yet and Buck was beginning to worry.

"And so I start looking in all the usual places, and I find out there's some sort of commotion going on in the throne room or whatever you want to call it. A detachment of guards had found Link lying next to this Ganon fella's corpse. They didn't know what to do so I took charge." Buck chuckled and drank half of his Zarlien Froglopper in one gulp. "These boys were stupid enough to help me load the girl here," he indicated Zelda, "onto a scout ship and then let me take Link out of the asteroid when I told them I'd be taking him to Ric Congor's base." The chuckle turned into a big belly-laugh and Tatiana joined in. Ric Congor was a notorious smuggler and boss of most big-time crime in the Delta-Beta-Alpha Quadrant.

"I think they were just glad to be rid of him." He finished off his drink. "Wonder what they'll do now?"

"I wonder what _we'll_ do now," Tatiana said glumly, scratching at her sling. "Should we take him back to our employers or what? I can't begin to fathom what those pencil pushing scientists would do to him."

"Well..." Buck smiled slyly. "They don't have a complete log of our inventory from the trip. I say we give them what they want: the stuff we picked up from AZ-48. Some furniture, a couple pieces of pottery, the soil samples. They don't know any people were in our cargo."

"Good point," Tatiana conceded.

Buck opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly Link shot up, clutching at his head and yelling in an incomprehensible language. Buck put his glass aside and rushed over to the young man, gently putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking him lightly.

"Kid, kid, it's okay, you're safe now, it's okay." Buck tried speaking soothingly and in a moment Tatiana was next to him, calming Link from the other side. "You're back in the Icarus, awake and alive."

Slowly, as though he feared it might all be an illusion, Link opened his eyes, blinking occasionally and glancing around. He calmed immediately. "What...what happened?" He noticed Zelda's frozen body nearby and reached out to touch her with the tips of his fingers. "Is Ganon...?"

"He's dead," Buck assured Link. "And I'll tell you the rest in a second; first, I think I'm gonna need another drink."

"So, I guess this is goodbye?" Buck shook Link's hand and gave him a smile. They were in the Icarus's shuttle chamber, where the escape shuttles were located in case of emergency. Link wore a regular spacesuit, a small blaster from Buck's armament holstered on his hip. He smiled back and shook both Buck's and Tatiana's hand, careful not to brush her sling.

"I guess so," Link said. He looked around, his gaze lingering for a moment on Zelda, who was strapped into the small cargo hold of one of the two shuttles. "I still can't believe this is all real. It's just too..."

"Amazing?" Buck supplied.

"Horrifying, scary, strange, weird, unimaginable, and yeah I suppose amazing fits as well." Link shrugged. "But I can't change it and go back to the way things were before; I'll just have to make do in this time. It'll be hard, but I think I can manage. I only wish..." Link sighed, staring mournfully at Zelda. "...I only wish I knew why _I_ was thawed out and not her. Maybe somewhere out there is the answers I need." He turned back to the two frigate pilots. "Thanks for everything."

Buck waved his hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter. If you ever need anything, well don't hesitate to call; I left our com channel on your ship's radio. You sure you're going to be able to fly that sucker?" Buck asked skeptically.

Link chuckled. "I hope so," he said. "Those instruction vids you left me should help a lot, and I want to thank you again for those other videos—" the word was slightly mispronounced by Link, who had never heard the word before "—I'm sure they'll help me learn about your way of life." He shook his head. "Everything is so different..."

"Well, good luck, and remember..."

"I know: if I ever need anything, give you a call." Link shook his head once more at all the new things that waited to assail him out there, in the great emptiness called "space". Then he slipped his helmet over his head and stepped into the shuttle, buckling himself into the pilot's seat. Buck and Tatiana left the chamber quickly, watching behind the safety shield in the control room.

Link sent the "all set" signal and Buck entered the code to open the outside door. Slowly, the shuttle lifted off the floor of the Icarus and drifted out into space. After he was a good distance away from the larger ship, Link engaged his main thrusters and set off for Satunus III. It was the closest habitable planet, and Buck had some contacts there who could help Link with his problem. Or at least, he hoped they could. He wondered if anyone could really help this young warrior thrown out of time into a perilous new universe.

Suddenly, Buck was jarred from his thoughts by Tatiana, who hit him with her good hand. "Hurry up and close that skraking door!" She said, indicating the wide shuttle hatch. "I don't trust your damn door seals here and I for one don't want the whole ship to depressurize, do you? And get a move on! We still have to collect our pay! The doctor's bill for this arm," she snarled as she raised her wounded arm, "will be out of the stratosphere! Unless you planned on letting it get infected, hmm?"

"Yes, Tatiana," Buck said with a smile as he closed the exterior door. At least some things looked like they were back to normal.

THE END


End file.
